Hi all -
I’m in the process of upgrading from a shopvac to a more elaborate dust collection system. While the X-Carve will be routed through it, I also have it hooked up to various other shop tools.
How concerned should I be about static buildup with this? What precautions should I be taking to prevent any issues?
For reference, I am using a 2hp Harbor Freight dust collector with 4" PVC pipe run throughout the shop.
Thanks!
This will be a volatile discussion 
Static sparking is a thing. Is it as serious as some make it out? Probably. Is it likely in a home shop? In my opinion, no. Would I still at least ground and try to eliminate static? Yes.
You definitely want to run grounding wires along your PVC piping to help eliminate the build up.
Personally I’d run a cyclone-type stage before the dust collector just to keep the big stuff out of the DC. If a rogue piece of debris happens to hit the motor impeller, it could spark and the cyclone helps eliminate that.
Grounding is easy and definitely worth doing, especially if you are using PVC pipe.
Ground it, x3. Minimal effort, definitely worth the protection it affords.
Fire from it is a minuscule risk, approaching zero. Mythbusters did a segment on it, even.
Even so, it’s easy and cheap and the static in those hoses can stop your X-Carve in the middle of a project so it’s a good idea to ground.
And if a shop fire is your fear (as it reasonably should be), I’d say the two most impactful steps you can take is to have a foolproof system for disposing of finish rags and to have at least one tested/charged fire extinguisher in the shop that’s easy to get to.
For more than 20 years my shop has had over 100 ft of 4" plastic pipe for my vac system attached 7 different machines. The only grounding I have is at my thickness planer. For whatever reason there is a tremendous amount of static build-up on it which can really be annoying. Zaps me when I get close and collects dust on the outside like crazy. Attached a wire to the plastic pipe with a sheet metal screw and the other end to the metal frame of the planer. Solved the problem and all has been well for years.
As mentioned by others, the issue of static causing fires appears to be a risk, however anecdotally, the risk appears to be almost zero.
Maybe of more interest is my experience where I used to get enough static that I’d get minor shocks. I also used to suffer lots and lots of problems which appeared to be related to static interfering with the control of the machine, operation of limit switches and a whole bunch of weird random behaviour.
I earthed my dust collection (and fixed lots of other minor things), but I suspect that at least some of my problems, were related to static affecting the controller.
